SUMMER ALPHABET (continued)

 D = DIVING BOARD    I was a creek swimmer.  Looking back, I try not to think much on exactly what we swam in.  As an adolescent heading off to Jr. High one makes friends from the other elementary schools in the area.  Those relationships led me to the Freeport Pool. 

After not being able to see the bottom of the creek and having to wear "creek shoes" to navigagte the rocks, the gleaming, chlorinated, clear blue waters of the white painted cement of the Freeport Pool was alluring.  The pool had a shallow end, a middle section with depths of about 5.5 feet and the roped off deep end of the pool where the diving boards were located. There were three boards. Two smaller ones and the looming large high dive.  

One walked up the steps to reach the board. It felt like at a certain angle I should've been able to see my house from that height.  The high diving board was a right of passage, a call to woman-up and just do it. These "rights of passage" always require a group of friends to support, agree with the assessment that this was crazed behvior and then to do it in solidarity....each one and all, as it were, jumping through the passage braver and bolder and more bad-asser.

E = EARLY CHURCH  Before the majority of churches would finally spring for the cost to air condition the sanctuary and prior to offering various services at different tiimes, there was early church. 

From the middle of June until Labor Day wekeend, congregations held worship an hour early, at 10 am. I don't recall it being any cooler, yet, following worshp persons would often exlclaim, "Now that's over, we've got the whole Sunday!"  I'm not certain that was the sought-after sentiment, yet, the fact was an entire summer Sunday was indeed wide open!

F = FRISBEE  There remains an inherent cool factor associated with the frisbee. This flying disc was made for the wide-open parks and fields of summer. The frisbee was easy to transport and fit in a backpack, trunk or frontseat. Once you learned how to throw it, the opportunities were endless and lots of people could play. Running under a softly hovering frisbee was bliss.   

To me, the frisbee is like the Instagram of summer sports; someone invents and masters creative ways to both throw and catch ---- behind the back, under the leg, leaping up and catching it between your legs, doing so backwards. Others notice, practice and accomplish said feats. This inspires more creativity and invention. Being tricky and athletic in the game of frisbee earned one instant "Look at that!" comments and a summer's worth of cool.

Start of Summer 2021

 

It is said that "every summer has a story." 

As summer officially begins, I offer my Alphabet of Summer which will contain memories of stories past and the foundation of tales yet to be experienced.

A = ALL DAY    The days of summer seem to just lay out in front of you.  The days are long and sunny (yes, that even happens here in Western PA).  One too feels an expanse of possibility and positive energy.  As a kid, free from school buildings, there was a sense of having all day to play and be outside. It was and is glorious!

B = BEALE REUNION    One of the common events of summer is the Family Reunion. My maternal grandparents, Ira and Emma Beale, had eleven children, nine of whom lived to adulthood. When I was a kid we gathered at my Aunt Ruth and Uncle Chuck's home off of the Allegheny River in Kennerdale, PA. 

Lessons learned from the Beale Reunion were:

• The women of the Beale line could cook.  They nurtured through food.  Trust me, I was nurtured well. The food spreads at the reunion were tables long and some of the best food I've ever eaten.
• The power of story.  A family that was grounded in the land and gardened, spent significant time in the woods, who hunted and fished, served and sacrificed had great tales to tell. Reflecting, I realize they have shaped all the members of the line and I hope the major themes of family, strength, grace and grit continue in me.
• The hierarchy of the river.  After frisbee and food, lounging and lawn darts, we crossed the railroad tracks and headed to the river. There was an order to your time in the water.  When you were a toddler to age 6 you were a mud-wallower and your river experience was in the mud near the shoreline.  From ages seven to eleven you could venture out of the mud to actually get into water above your waist so as to swim and tread and float. The teenage years and up allowed you to jump off the dock and if so lead go water skiing while Uncle Chuck, pipe in mouth, drove the boat.

C = CANTALOUPE   My mother was a major fan of the summer cantaloupe. When they were harvested and put out in bins to be purchased from the local Ambrose Farm we made several trips....sometimes twice a week to buy melons. Of course, mum would zero-in on the near-perfect melon somehow always located in the back of the bin. I would take on gymnastic moves, balancing myself on the lower rung of the bin and reached for the desired melon trying always not to fall into the cantaloupes nor to cause neither the "lesser melons" nor myself to tumble and roll onto the floor.

    

Who?!!!?? Me??!!???

 

Twenty-nine years ago today, June 14, I was ordained. 

The service was in the gymnasium at Grove City College, location of the 1992 Western PA Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. Bishop George Bashore presided. It was a warm, sunny, June Sunday. Following the service, my family celebrated at "Quaker Steak and Lube."

During the service was the first time I heard and sung the hymn, "Here, I Am Lord"  the lyrics of which come from the call of Samuel as highlighted in I Samuel 3. That hymn remains a personal favorite sung often during mission trip commissionings and laity Sundays. 

Being ordained has afforded me the opportunity to be present in major moments in  persons' lives. I have anointed the dying, baptized infants, been present for a person's first confession of faith, officiated at funerals working to honor the life of the deceased in ways personal and poignant. I have been the officiant for weddings where my first time I neglected to tell the congregation to "please be seated" and they stood the entire service.  The sanctuary had the tall candle holders on the end of the pews so I never noticed.  

Why someone didn't just sit down is a mystery to me, yet, I know that during morning worship if during the first hymn I did not stand up and raise my arm to invite congregants to rise, they would stay seated. I always wanted to raise my arm and then lower it, raise and lower and get a kind of congregational wave going.

A recent Gallup Survey revealed that for the first time Americans' membership in a worship community is below 50% with younger generations (Millenial and Z) reporting zero religious affiliation. 

The church has done it to ourselves.  I am not the least bit surprised of the survey results. This has been coming. 

I took the photo to the left several years ago while on vacation in Virginia; I thought it perfectly captured the institution of the church as I have experienced it. Alas, things have only gotten worse. Church leadership has become inefffectual and irrelveant in persons' lives. When a major social event such as yet another mass shooting or the backlog of immigrants at the Southern border, a majority of clergy fail to mention or address this during worship. Say something.  Even more do something. As the old saying goes, "the oppositie of love isn't hate, it's apathy." Alas, with justifiable proof too many people feel the church does not care about them.

I beleive the faith perspective needs to be offered and the faith lens utilized and shared as we debate and decide and determine our direction as communities and a shared society.  This viewpoint is vital. To do that we must be informed. To do that we must care. To do that we must be involved. 

It pains me when I frequently hear from far too many persons who say they would not be welcome in the church or that they don't go because they don't want to be stared at or have folks feel they need to be fixed. Not for the insitituion, yet, because of who we profess to be as followers of the Christ, this MUST change. 

In light of this, a final point to ponder from Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry: "The church is the only organization that exists primarily for those who are not its members."